My friend Pei from Germany visited us last night. He’s really from around here but he’s been there so long he’s earned the honorary distinction. He showed me something pretty cool on his MacBook and I’ve done something similar on mine:

Too many icons in your dock? Put them in folders.

What you’ll notice is that to the left of the Trash there is a folder containing aliases to other applications. Nothing fancy about that: all you have to do is drag a folder to the right side of the dock.

What’s nice is you can change the icon so that instead of a dull-looking folder, you can have something more fun! Here’s how you do it:

1. First download some icons that you like. You can search Google for “Mac OS X icons.” Another good source is Apple’s download site or Iconfactory.

2. Next make the folder where you will drop your aliases. I made four folders called Music, Movies, Write, and Other Apps, and saved them in my Documents folder.

3. Now you’ll want to put aliases in your folder. I put aliases to programs I don’t use frequently (the ones I use frequently go right into the dock). A fast way to make aliases is to find the program, press Option + Command, then drag and drop the program into your folder.

4. Here’s the fun part: select an icon you want to use and press Command + C to copy it. Next, Get Info on the folder you’ve created (click on the folder and press Command + I). In the Get Info window that comes up, click on the folder icon so that it’s highlighted. Then press Command + V to paste. Voila! New icon.

5. Drag the folder to the dock.

6. When you want to call up those aliases, just control-click the folder or hold-click it.